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Max sits in the little heated hut, tugging on her rental skates. Like everything in her life before that week, she can barely remember the last time she went skating, even though she used to go all the time with her dad. It might have been years since the storm, but here she is. On a date. It still feels weird, alien, even after all their years together. She hopes it doesn’t show on her face. She glances over at Chloe, who’s already lacing up her skates. It’s hard to place her expression. There’s the concentration written in her face as she tugs the laces tight, but the pain and loss is still there. It’s always there, even when she’s smiling and laughing and pretending to forget, even just for a moment. They’ve had so many of those moments together, where they’ve tried to pretend to forget and trying to just be a normal couple.
Maybe this will be different. Their first date not as girlfriends, but fiancés. As usual, this whole thing was Chloe’s idea. Their date nights usually involved losing themselves in each other, in private or in public. She finishes tugging the last skate on with a grunt and starts working on tugging the laces just tight enough so they don’t cut off circulation.
“Come on, Max! Use those tiny hipster muscles!”
She laughs a little as Chloe clonks her way over the heavy rubber floor, her usual cocky grin plastered in place. Max rolls her eyes a little as she starts tying the knot on her left skate. This is their usual dance, the playful teasing and her feigned indignation. She loves it. “I’ll have you know I used to skate all the time in Seattle.”
Chloe leans against the far wall, grinning wider. “Oh yeah?”
Max sticks her tongue out at Chloe as she tugs the knot on her right skate tight. “We used to skate together!”
Chloe’s face tightened for a moment before she sighed. “Yeah… Yeah we did.”
Her gut twists, like it always does when she accidentally reminds her of William. “It’s… been a while?”
Chloe’s cocky smile is gone, her eyes downcast as she nods. Max pushes herself up to her feet, carefully balancing herself on the curved blades now attached to her feet. “Do you still remember how?”
The cocky demeanor is back in a flash, Chloe’s eyes glittering at the unspoken challenge. “Fuck yeah I do! Race you to the rink, hippy!”
Max can’t hold in the laugh as they both bolt from the hut and out into the bitter February air, her pain forgotten for just a moment as their heavy footfalls against the rubber-covered wood ramp echo around the night. Chloe makes it first, those long legs of hers are definitely cheating. She loses her watch on Chloe for a moment as she makes the transition from clumsily walking on rubber mats to gliding around on the glass-smooth sheet of ice. She closes her eyes and smiles to herself as she leans into her momentum, arms pumping on her sides as she pushes off and gains speed. The simplicity of motion overwrites her senses for a moment, the feeling of blades biting into ice, the sensation of gliding across the smooth surface. She always loved the feeling of control skating gave her, the sense of surety. She decides where she goes, she bends the laws of motion to her will, and curves in a graceful arc back to her fiancé. It’s the one thing she’s actually kind of athletic in.
She couldn’t help the smirk as Chloe’s arms windmill around as she struggles to keep her balance on the slippery surface. She may have lost the race, but she’s definitely winning right now. She pushes off, building speed and power to race at Chloe, her arms and legs pumping hard. Chloe is too busy flailing around trying not to fall to notice her until she gasps in alarm and falls on her butt when she brings up her hands to catch Max.
Max makes a short, hard hockey stop, spraying shaved ice beside Chloe, before she doubles over in laughter. Her punk princess blows a blond lock out of her face and pretends to glare at Max. She doesn’t buy it; she can see the smile in her eyes. Snow starts to fall. “Laugh it up, chucklefuck.”
Max extends her hand to Chloe, laughter still on her lips. “Like you ever let me live anything down.”
Chloe looks at the proffered hand, her eyes lingering on the coat hanger and lead-free solder ring she’d made. She huffs and just for a moment Max thinks that Chloe isn’t going to take it, but she does and she helps haul her love back to her feet. “ Fine. I guess you can have one thing.”
Their lips touch when Chloe’s back on her feet, short and sweet, before her Captain is off on another adventure. She can’t help the smile as she watches Chloe trying to remember how to skate, how to push off and balance. “Quit being so stubborn and let me help you.”
Chloe’s shoulders sag and spins to face Max, her face a mask of surrender. “Okay, but only because it’s you.”
Max grins and takes her hand. “You’ll remember in no time.”
The pair set off again, Chloe leaning a bit into Max’s grasp. The heaviness grounds her, makes her believe, just for a moment, that they’re okay. That the pain is really gone this time. It doesn’t take long for Chloe to remember how to skate, but their hands stay together like they’re back on the train tracks from an eternity ago.
The snow starts to pick up, the black glass of the ice covered in white. Max starts losing the feeling in her fingertips, then her fingers, then her hands. She retrieves her hand from Chloe’s to blow on them, hoping her warm breath will bring back sensation. The smile that has been welded to Chloe’s face falters for a moment. “Turning into a Maxicle on me?”
Max shivers and nods. “Yeah, I’m going to go warm up.”
Chloe nods, suddenly all solemn. “Okay… I think I’ll stay out here for a bit.”
Max shrugs and skates through the rapidly thickening snow to the changing hut. She holds her hands over the glowing hot radiator and sighs with relief before slowly tugging off her skates. This was a nice idea, I actually had a good time… I seriously need to start planning dates for us.
Skates swap out for heavy boots she lingers by the heater, warming herself up just a touch more before she’s back out in the bracing cold. I hope Chloe isn’t freezing her butt off to prove something.
She hangs the rented skates over one shoulder by the laces, and puts her bag with William’s camera over the other before pushing back out into the inky night. Her breath is stolen away, and not by the cold.
Chloe is standing on the rink, smiling ear to ear with a shovel in her hands. Amidst the stark white snow, her eyes trace an outline in the black ice. Two hearts, linked together. One has M in the middle, the other C. She fights back a few tears as she tugs her camera out and captures the moment. Maybe we will be alright.